im not lieing (sic)
by dandelion-heart
Summary: It always goes a little something like this, in tears, with boundless regrets.
1. 00

**00**

**A prologue of sorts.**

How do misspellings occur?

The mistake might be made by a child or a full-grown adult. It may be because the language is foreign or they simply did not know the words. It may be that they were not paying attention or it may be that they did not care.

You might think misspellings happen when you write a word on paper. But what about when you write in your mind the words you want to tell someone?

When someone thinks he or she is in love, he or she might be a child or a full-grown adult. He might not understand how to express the truth or she might not even know what the truth is. She may stumble with her confession because she is not paying attention or he does not care about what to say as long as he said something after all.

The three this story is concerned with are stupid in more ways than one. They are torn between childhood and adulthood, are confused with their world, confused about their friends, confused about themselves. And to make matters worse, they are all in love.

How do misspellings occur? Nothing is an accident – everything is intentional.

Whether or not they spelled it correctly, they've convinced themselves that they are in love with something precious and their love is right and in their ignorance, they will tell you with innocent stupidity –

"**im not lieing**."


	2. 01

01

...You were right about me.

Sakura didn't know why she was crying. She had stopped mere inches away from Sasuke and she could hear his labored breathing, the expanding of his exhausted lungs near his wildly beating heart. Her kunai's tip was trembling and her vision was blurred and the only coherent thought screaming inside her head was reminding her of the other boy she left behind.

He had stared at her with disappointed eyes and when his hands gripped her arms, they felt cold and still. She had seen Naruto broken before but something in his voice had shifted – he was not unhappy. He was irritated, frustrated and impatient and his fingers tightened around her sleeves – but he wanted her to be happy. She wanted to embrace him again, wanting back what she could have had just a moment ago but it was useless.

He didn't want her. And now Sasuke was turning, eyes red and haunted and merciless and her kunai was swept aside. Did no one want her?

Did she not have anything for them to hold, to understand? She heard Naruto's accusations again and her heart lurched as Sasuke reached out, wanting to end this, wanting to rid her from his sight. His hand tightened around her throat and she gasped, pain coloring her blurred vision.

She was always going to be unhappy and now in her last moment, she would be as miserable as the two boys she was leaving behind.

Naruto had looked at her and asked her if it was true, a silent inquiry from the eyes. Did she really want to be broken in some way like they were, a way that was irreparable and permanent and fatal? The question was digging deep in her consciousness along with a weird and inescapable feeling of loneliness. Do you want to be like us?

He already knew the answer but that did not stop her from moving her lips in a prayer that he'd hear her whisper the truth, Yes I want to be like you.

She closed her eyes and felt Sasuke move in to kill.

* * *

**A**/**N**: Inspiration for these drabbles taken from the un_love_you fic challenges from LiveJournal; please review if you enjoyed!


	3. 05

05

...You can be like me.

Naruto was a strange name. He didn't think it was but apparently little children with big smiles and cheerful voices did. They pointed at him and when he tried to walk away as if he hadn't heard but tripped, they shrieked with laughter and it was so loud that he covered his ears and simply lay there, hoping they'd leave him alone.

You shouldn't cry, someone had whispered one morning when he sat by a tree, watching a girl take her first steps into the arms of a father with eyes that scared him. They were too bright and his eyes began to water and then a voice above him rustled the branches and warned him and ran away before he could ask why.

He was alone so often that he forgot how to talk to people so he made up conversations with himself and they were entertaining enough to distract him from the glares on every side of the street. Naruto, did you know that Shina forgot to pay for groceries last night? Naruto, did you remember to remind Hira about his rent? Naruto, did you hear the Yakamuras fighting yesterday?

He didn't care that he stole happy memories and cut and pasted his own face in. Why should he care that what he talked about to himself was stolen from laughing voices that were so loud, they begged for him to remember their conversations?

He had a strange name and a strange high and husky voice and he played strange games when he broke into houses and jumped off too-tall trees and eavesdropped on women too old to be his mother but he liked the way they spoke so gently and rested their hands on children's heads.

He walked in the evening when everyone, pretty children and beautiful mothers and handsome fathers and sweet elders, was gathered around the table and they said each other's name as if they were precious, sacred words. He walked in the evening and thought to himself how strange he was.

And maybe he was too strange to be with anyone and so that's why he was always alone. He didn't believe it, he didn't want to, he bit his lip until blood dripped but that happened too often for him to care. And then he saw the shadow by the dock, by the shore, by the horizon.

His vision was blurred but he knew it was a boy and in summer eve golden glow, he was a sharp black mark. From the top of the hill, he saw an eye rove to the corner to meet his gaze. He couldn't see the boy's face but both of them stared at each other until Naruto moved away, unsure of anything he might have said with his strange voice or done with his strange face. All he knew was that there was someone else, alone, just like him.

At the end of the road, he turned around and realized he wanted to ask the stranger if he'd play with him. Maybe God put him there so when he walked by, they'd meet and be friends. And maybe that boy wasn't like him and he was normal and he'd teach him how to be welcomed by normal people so he wouldn't have to live in dark places, away from words like 'parents' and 'happiness' and 'love.'

Maybe they could be friends, and just thinking that word made Naruto smile and forget to stop even though on his way back home, someone would curse him for being bad luck. He smiled and forgot he was strange and busied himself with creating a good conversation for the boy at the bottom of the hill.

Maybe, just maybe, the boy would even like his name.


	4. 09

09

...Always wondered what this'd be like.

He wanted to squeeze the hand harder. He wanted to break the bones, drag the ligaments against each other, feel the skin and muscle shiver into dust. He wanted the hand to shiver into dust. He forgot momentarily whose hand it was but then he heard her breath hitch and he sensed her teeth sink into her tongue to stop from crying out.

Ah, this was Sakura.

The world was black and red and dark and he wanted to cry out, even whimper, but he concentrated on that one hand and how it was holding him upright. It was holding him upright. But his shoulders snapped back and his legs collapsed so he tumbled into her arms, head buried in her chest, her heart like a clock in his ear singing his dying moments away. This pain did not dull or fade but it grew, splashing over him in playful waves, taunting him with blindness and powerful aches.

But there was Sakura.

Her arms flowed around him and she held her breath so that he would not need to move. He did not move. She was so soft and gentle and her scent wafted around him like a blanket doing little to shield the cold from a child but staying still amidst the gusts.

He wondered if he hurt her hand. He wondered if this hurt could compare to how he screamed that night when he was truly alone amidst broken limbs and splintered fingers and gaping sockets where the eyes lay petrified. Eyes lay petrified and stared back.

He wondered if she'd keep him by her, inside the hollow beneath her ribs and over her lap. Then he stopped wondering because she bent over him, lips brushing over his black hair and he felt sleep drown him in memories of silent lullabies and nights in his mother's bed.

Someone is laughing. Someone was laughing.

Is that someone gone? But how could he suddenly remember the sound of her eyes and the sight of her hushed breathing? Eyes that stared back, no longer upright, she was dust…

Sakura, are your hands stolen from the one who brought me into living and now is dead?


	5. 13

13

...I want to hurt you.

She didn't know what to say. She didn't even know what to think. The truth was pressing on the walls around her and she was standing in a room with no doors and one window with blinding light pouring in. A thunderous voice was echoing and her breathing started to fade out.

Naruto and Sasuke were talking and their eyes were angry but their voices were weak and desperate and they were trying to convince the world that all was right and they knew what to do. Their eyes were angry because they knew what the other did not and yet they clung to half-eaten lies and truths that were worming out of pores in their skin.

And she stood silently behind them, wanting to be between them once more because she finally realized she didn't belong. And it was hurting her.

They hated to love one another and brothers had never curdled their blood so strongly before. Sasuke kept saying he'd kill Naruto and Naruto kept saying he'd kill himself just to save Sasuke and their names and words were like poison on delicate flesh already burned by the sun and wind. She didn't notice tears over her face because she had lost all sense of touch. Her vision was blurring but her hearing, the last to go before death, was making sure she caught every syllable and breath in between pauses so that she'd know for sure-

She had no place between them.

They were going to die and leave her all alone again and Naruto didn't mind and Sakura turned to see that Sasuke didn't mind either. Neither of them hated death like her, worshipped victory like her, envied change and its gluttonous ways like her. Neither of them was like her.

Why then had it been so necessary for her to run faster than light and block out the dark every time they fell and started to bleed from a transplanted heart? Why had she trained until her muscles were imprinted with their memory and why had she spent nights shivering herself to sleep because warmth was all she had to offer them?

She wanted to cry and almost laughed when she reached up to touch her wet and salty cheeks. She held her scream in and gasped out loud instead, wanting to un-let all the pain in her consume her sight and sense of touch.

Everything was wrong. Weren't they a trio? Weren't they a team?

No, no they were not. Sasuke and Naruto stood and grinned and sneered and stared and told each other that their world was in each other's heart because brothers are never meant to love each other enough to forgive.

So they concentrated on not forgetting each other and they stood so far away from Sakura that she fought down the agony of knowing that it was her instead, they chose to forget.


	6. 17

17

...Wish I didn't love you.

Sakura looked beautiful in the moonlight. She lay on his bed, hair strung over her face like scattered petals. Her hands were curled by her throat and she lay curved beside him, breathing quiet and even. He gritted his teeth as he looked down and fought the urge to wake her.

He never asked her to change her opinions and to let him in and to think of him as more than a team member, more than just a liability or a curse. He was used to stagnant stares and forever assumptions. He was used to running after something for so long, his legs numbed and his mind forgot that he would never catch it. He'd stumble and crash into undergrowth and when he woke up, he'd realize that the something was gone and he'd shrug and go on looking for something else to endlessly pursue.

One track mind, Sakura had glared at him and said yesterday, but when he had explained thoroughly he was not perverted like she thought he was, she simply shook her head. You're an idiot, she spat, angry and she looked up, tortured and wanting him to heal her. He reached out and she let him hug her and she let him kiss her on her scarred temple but when he took a step back, she stared at him and said, I meant what I said.

He was willing to admit he was a bit too stupid to know if a girl was an angel or a mere mortal playing with feelings. He couldn't tell the extent to which she might be lying and so she'd walk on him and he'd let her, wanting to know why she was so desperate for his company. Sakura whispered it over and over again and when he didn't respond, thinking that it was still a lie, she punched him down and screamed that she loved him. It wasn't a lie, he told himself but something whispered that she repeated the same mantra to herself, too.

He was used to girls ignoring and hurting and lying to him but Sakura was never tainted like the others in his eyes. She was something pure and whole in the moonlight, in the evening light when she clung to him and tried to make him promise not to end his life, in the darkness of his mind when he thought of her to keep himself intact. If she wanted to willingly hurt anything, it was the dark blue part of himself, the part he nurtured though it festered and infected his touch. She wanted him to be as golden and bright and scorching as before, too hot to approach but too warm to ignore. She apologized over and over and he simply lay there before he started laughing and she stopped crying, confused. She looked down at him lying in the dirt, and he thought not of his aching arm or his burning eyes taking in her tears but of a way to make her see that he always accepted her, his one angel.

He realized later on that he didn't mean to do anything or become anything she'd rely on. He wanted to be the go-to man for any impossible task and mission and be such a heroic man that no one could see the human hurt in him. He didn't want her to see him as a mortal susceptible to her love and pain because she was an angel herself. What was the use of bringing her down to filthy, blood-stained earth? He wanted to be untouchable.

He wanted to shake her awake and tell her he was sorry but even in his mind, he knew it would be insincere. As much as he hated that both of them clung to each other for something that was never meant to be delivered, he was relieved that he wasn't alone. He was relieved that he could share something with the girl lying beside him, reassured for at least a night.

He bit his lip and looked to his right where light was seeping in through the curtained window. The night was over.


	7. 21

21

...You'll do.

She was vile and crude and she was much less than beautiful. Her hair was too loud and her eyes were too eager and she ate him up when he talked and drank him in when he passed by. He ignored her by sheer will and chose to endure her company rather than show his displeasure and expose his feelings. Feelings were useless anyways.

But comparisons were inevitable and he found himself staring not out of interest but out of curiosity and a throwback to the old days. Another girl he knew had bright hair but it was soft and it shone like delicately dried ink in the sunlight. Her skin was paler and softer and her eyes were bright and smoldered like soft leaves churning in a maelstrom. Sakura was soft despite the yells, despite the blows, despite her weak attempts to stand beside him and follow his shadow. Sakura was something alive and vivid and pure.

But he didn't need her or scarred memories or aches crawling through knots around his spine reminding him of how soft she was, yielding and breakable and everlasting. And he compared her endlessly to the girl before him who wanted him with insatiable desires going beyond mere sensory touch.

She wasn't Sakura and she was stronger, harder, already tainted for his purpose. He didn't know why he looked back, turned around to reflect on the lesser, gentler girl of his past.

In the hour that changed his sight he thought of Karin as Karin one last time. Blood streamed down and his vision started to blur and Karin's head snapped back, eyes wide, blood spurting and splashing the earth and the rippling wind. He watched her fall but saw Sakura in her stead, ruined and dying. He forced himself to see it through and watch Sakura die, becoming nothing at all right before him.

He thought he won and he thought he had truly succeeded in ridding himself of the cursed angelic softness of Sakura and her desperate smile. Then someone's echo called out to him and he turned and caught sight of her. The girl he kept himself from destroying the very first time was there now, alive and well and he wanted to scream out that he was done with her and he finished her and he no longer needed to feel his heart rise when pink fluttered before him.

Then he reminded himself Sakura died and stared impassively at the stranger. Karin or Sakura, neither girl existed any longer in his sphere of consciousness and he glanced at her form with empty eyes.

There was nothing left to do but leave and like any other ghost, waning from loss of affection and attention, she'd follow and he'd ignore, once again.


End file.
